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The Awakening of the Syladris
The Finding Dawn, when witnessed beneath the leafy canopy of the Verdigris forest, is as glorious as a world without shadow, as splendid as a moon without night. It swells within a feeling of wellbeing, joy, triumph...and for a moment, just a moment, the beholder can indulged in the illusory absence of the darkness which reigns freely o’er this land. The end of a dream, the failing of night, as the first rays of persistent Light press through the darkness – it is a frightening hour for those who live in dreams. They are those who must be cast into the unknown, stranded by a world unseen, naked in the eyes of reality. And to be made to tread that foreign plane alone…it is a terrible concept to behold. The creators of dreams know this and so often leave traces of the reverie behind so that the awoken may follow a lingering sense of familiarity. For it is terrible to be lost. Shaken from his philosophical reverie by the sudden rush of wing beats past his ear, the prowling Zahir turned to look through the glares of the sun and beyond the sparkling leaves. The sound of gurgling stream was a tell-tale sign that he was nearing the boundaries of his last excursion. He wondered what remained of the carcass he’d left behind. Some may call it morbid curiosity but Soravyn preferred to view it as keeping one step ahead of carnivorous paws. A method of tracking the thing that tracks you, if you will. A pair of snowy lashes snapped apart, the scarlet irises they revealed wide, hungry, frightened. For a time, they gazed at nothing, blinded by the sparkling gold that filtered in through foliage of green and spread warmth across the upturned face. The eyes flinched, narrowing into a squint while the ashen lips below wrinkled with perplexity. Very slowly, an ivory hand uplifted to shield those eyes, mechanically, a feat tested for the first time. Then, just before the sun’s glare might’ve sent the eyes back into darkness, a jerk of movement in the shadows of a wild rose bush turned the head. A new glimmer took life in the eyes as the feathery ruffle of wings took flight again, the white and gray squawker fleeing the unwanted attention of this sudden anomaly. It wasn’t long before he found it, still sprawled and broken near the downed tree limb. The stillness in the air was unnerving, but his ears could not detect any sounds of anxious breath nor could his nose catch scent of fresh scat or carrion breath. Still…something had gnawed delicately at one of the bones that had been split apart cleanly - too cleanly for the marks of teeth. Spindly fingernails scratched with failure through the bush as the bird got away, several seconds in fact before the hand plunged in strike. On level with the roses, a nose breathed for the first time the scent of lust, passion, and new life. Lips trembled with awe, fingers touched oh so inquisitively, and a virgin drop of blood shed. The indigo gem pattered downward between leaves and thorns, shattering on the earthen floor. The crimson eyes watched intently as its sister matter split into many, casting and rolling asunder into the forest bed. There they would be absorbed in darkness, forgotten, and yet a secret shared with the timeless trees above. Frowning, the former Justiciar lifted his head to take another glance around before bending down to better examine the evidence. It was then that she spoke. “''We are lossst...the sssadnesss cloudsss...” ''“HO!” The man shouted and stumbled ‘round while swiftly bringing a blade to bear, his wide eyes betraying the bewilderment he felt, the embarrassment and perhaps even frustration at having failed to detect his present company. The eyes watched this, too, captivated by the sounds and movements he made. '''He', because her nose, deflowered by a flower, knew it to be so. And yet what was this he?'' It wasn’t a woman’s voice, at least not any that he’d hear before. Feminine, but far too raspy with strange lisp. Yet there was a woman’s face, half hidden in the brush not more than a couple meters from his feet. Her skin was pure as ivory, but badly raked with debris and scabbed with blood. Her hair was equally white with flecks of amber in their depths and horridly ensnared by the gnarly twigs. Yet even as he approached, she did not look at him, but rather gazed upwards to the sky with the sorrow of the forsaken. The rest of her more or less vanished into the depths of the foliage but he suspected as her bare shoulder betrayed, that she was naked. A victim of banditry and rape, perhaps? Sheathing the blade as he tread closer for inspection, Soravyn called softly back to her. “Miss...Miss are you of able body? May I assist you?” Keeping an eye sharply about for any evidence of weaponry or sabotage, he knelt to the ground and released his cloak from its clasp. “This early hour is yet too cold and dangerous for ladies to be traversing the wood alone.” The words were meant partially in jest, for the wildlands themselves were no place for a solitary person, and spoken with a tone of faintest sympathy. “''Not alone''...” The ashen lips whispered back to him, translucent lashes fluttering closed while she sucked in a shuddering breath and curled her chin inward. It was then that her would-be rescuer took note of the horns. At first assumption, it looked as though she’d rendered them free perhaps from the deer, but a glance back to the carcass reminded Soravyn that it had been a doe and the horns – those horns – were most definitely not born of the head of any animal he’d before seen. Dawn’s illusion of a perfected realm was swiftly fading, memories and thoughts of the shadow’s many forms returning, and he took a few hesitant steps aside, choosing instead to examine from a safer distance. A bird could fly and a man could step. Both were means of escape. The bird had flown, but the man still stood. Close. The woman creature wouldn’t have it, however. At last her eyes did roll towards him, blood-red in color, and mouth opened in silent plea. The sight of a purple, forked tongue and sickle-shaped teeth nearly turned his stomach but he stood firm ground, nonetheless. “What are you,” purred the stoically cool demand, his eyes hardened with suspicion, but mind wide open with curiosity. Not a bird, not a man...these answers '''she' knew. More indigo gems had trickled from tender flesh, introducing her body to the concept of pain as she shifted again in the bush. The leaves bit at her, possessing a life of their own. They embraced her, this new brethren of the natural world.'' “''Not alone''...” Wheezed the dreadful beauty again. She freed a slender arm from somewhere within that underbrush to claw along the ground and reach in earnest for his boot. He paced aside again, hand resting still over the hilt of his blade. Her eyes begged of him. The frightened eyes of a dying doe. When one thing leaves this plane of reality, a hole exists, and nature demands it be filled. So it was, perhaps, that as fate would hold, while the doe drew her final breaths in the sun’s dying rays, another thing stirred in the horizon of awaiting night, existing in dreams but ready to be born. Ready to be frightened and cast into the realm of day. Her other arm rustled forth but rather than attempting to snare his bootlaces, the too-long fingernails grated at the earth like an animal, digging. No, not digging. Pulling. Before he could finish considering a next course of action, her state of dress was blatantly confirmed when a bare breast emerged, followed by its sister, and the beginnings of a torso. Here, she stopped. Was it for modesty’s sake? The trembling one paused in her emergence, having sensed the change in pace of his breath. What was once calm and controlled was now ragged and uncertain. The smell of the meat taunted her insides of their remembered hunger. But it was fading –the smell- as was her vision and all perceptions of this damp, cool place. Something moved around behind her, something shook the branches, something prodded and then cursed when something else hit the leafy floor beside her. She’d been eaten alive by a snake! A very, very large snake, at that, though he’d never seen a nightslider with THAT coloration before. At least, that was Soravyn’s first impression when he circled to the other side of the brush. A swift, tentative poke from his blade to the serpentine belly engaged no reaction from the alleged snake, but the female did groan. Perhaps the nightslider had choked to death on its prey and the poor thing in its mouth was left to die a slow death. But she wouldn’t die alone, clearly, just as she’d stated. A horned woman creature came to claim the deer carcass and was then attacked by a fellow predator that had followed the same scent? Or perhaps it was the other way around. Shaking his disbelief at his fanciful postulations, Soravyn cast aside his hesitancy and reached into the leafy matter to grab firmly on the ‘head’ of the snake in attempts to pull it free. The bird had flown away but a man had approached. One thing departs and another arrives. It is balance. But what now makes this man a man and not a bird? The befuddled mind continued to process while the flesh and blood lay still, weak and tired. More importantly, what made this man who is not a bird different from she? A question answerable once she knew precisely who '''she' was.'' He was rewarded not with teeth, but the unsettling union of scale and flesh. Soft, warm, silken flesh transitioned so smoothly into the leathery scales that he could not find clear distinction between the two. This was no snake. And this was no woman. “''Syladrissss...” The thing weakly hissed before losing consciousness. ''For many passings of time, there was only darkness. But she was not alone. Voices came to her in the darkness. Feelings, thoughts, whispers...all so serene. The beating of wings reverberated in her brain at times, beckoning her to join them in flight. She wished she could. The Investigation: What is a Syladri? Dusk. When witnessed from within the dark, heavy hide of a tent, no measures of defense could outdo the feelings, illusion, of contentment and safety that it elicits. Tucked safely away from the creatures of night that would soon emerge, and yet still able to partake in the beauty of it all. That is, of course, unless you have a half woman, half snake curled up on your floor where you’d left her, enveloping much of the space by sheer aura. “We are not in Fastheld. This is the wildlands”, he repeated to himself for the third time in the past hour. It was a new mantra he’d acquired...just six hours ago, really, when the reality of the day’s events had hit him the hardest. This was the wildlands, echoes number four, anything was possible in the realm of shadow and distance of light. Rising from his perch on the table, Soravyn tossed his uneaten apple back to his seat, missed, then ignored it as it rolled into the unknown beyond the tent flap. His eyes focused intently instead on the exotic frame that occasionally stirred beneath the leather cloak. He wasn’t sure how precisely he’d managed to get her to the tent without inducing a hernia. Her feminine bone structure was slender, delicate even, but the muscular monstrosity that trailed from her hips weighed easily as much as himself - armor laden. Dragging her body along had worked for nearly three quarters of an hour before humanity and twangs of conscience overtook the continuance of his active course. The burden was then shifted primarily to his shoulders, after firmly binding her wrists and gagging that toothy mouth, leaving the majority of the tail to snake along behind them. Him. It was Her. When they had returned to his camp, he’d kindly removed the plant matter and leather strap from her jaw but left her hands bound. Now what? Now was the time to take advantage of her unconsciousness, of his privacy, and examine more thoroughly his unholy quarry. Taunting shadows lurked just beneath her reach as they surrounded her, whispering malintentions while bickering over their possession. Ownership. Tshepsi lay very still as they slowly closed in around and began to smother over her form. She inhaled them through her nostrils, felt them creep beneath her fingernails...kiss upon her ear. An ancient word threaded through her thoughts and so she uttered it softly. Just then, a blinding white erupted from the center of the shadows, scattering them, and a pair of tender, blue eyes peered into her soul. The word was sucked - no, pushed back down her throat as the thing in white touched her lips gently. It began to fade away again. When the shadows resumed their unconscious molestation, she caught glimpse of the snowy wings, gliding back beyond the darkness. Awaken, Tshepsi. Awaken and be heard. Soravyn staggered back to the floor, away from his inquisitive touching of her horns, and released the clawed hand from his grip. She had spoken something, softly, and though he did not know what it meant, it left a painful ringing in his ears. “...T-tashep?” He echoed back, butchering what he thought he’d heard as though expecting clarification from the prone creature. Soravyn squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, willing the dizziness to fade before unsheathing the small blade from its place on his hip. He wasn’t entirely certain what she’d done to him, or what she was further capable of doing, but there was no sense in disarming himself. Leaning forward, he used the tip of the blade to lift a corner of her lip like the jowls of a feral dog and studied the fang it revealed. Something purple glistened and twisted behind that tooth and so he retracted swiftly to parts deemed less threatening. A casting aside of the cloak enabled him better view of the merging of flesh and scale to which his fingers were drawn a second time. “Shadow’s taint,” he murmured, “can take alluring forms.” More intriguing than the pale scales themselves, however, were the small, amber markings that marred an otherwise flawless torso. Hastily, he fumbled aside for the lantern and shone light o’er the snowy skin. When first bearing witness in the forest, he’d assumed them to be scratches or hives, but this more intimate encounter proved both those perceptions wrong. There was no apparent pattern to them, no aligned stringing together as though in language. But each marking was simply too deliberate, like strokes from a quill, to be nature’s doing. Whatever the origin, it would be left to contemplate for another day, because the thing was awakening. The tip of the tail curled tentatively at first, giving Soravyn enough time to back away before the whole thing lurched, sloughing off the cloak, and spilling the contents of his nearby haversack. The fingers strained from their binding, arms writhing, and he could plainly see the rippling of muscle beneath the softer skin of her belly. The bindings would not hold for long and he really didn’t want to contend with an angry snake with arms. “Make peace with yourself, I mean you no harm,” Soravyn purred regally forth in as harmless a tone as he could, deciding that it was better to make allies, at least for now, with ... Tashep. That’s what he’d call her. Regardless of the outcome, one hell of a findings journal would come from this encounter. “You’re in a safe place.” Although the bindings were limited to her wrists, Tshepsi felt as though her entire frame were paralyzed, bogged down with an impossible weight. She could sense, feel, the enclosure’s limits all around her. Trapped. For several minutes the man’s words seemed not to register with her, but at last, the Syladris stopped her pathetic squirming. “Sssky?” She asked of him plainly, breathing hard now with anxiety she knew not the source of. This thing called “fear” would later be introduced to her vocabulary. From her place on the floor, Tshepsi gazed up at the strange face with a fiery sensation in her eyes. “There’s no need for tears...” Soravyn stated, adjusting the weight of his blade in his hands. “I just want to make sure you aren’t going to hurt me. Or yourself. ” Remembering the scratches on her face, he added “Do you realize you’re hurt? I can help you.” “Sssky...” Tshepsi repeated, this time with more insistence. Her tail, having found the tent’s flap, lifted it just barely to reveal the darkness outside. “Sssky.” The action lasted little more than a few seconds before weakness forced her tail’s tip back to the earthen floor. Panting resumed, she rolled a fevered brow into the dirt in tired defeat. The moon grew lower on the horizon and the initial purple rays of dawn brewed on the other before Soravyn was able, he felt, to convince Tashep to remain still long enough for him to tend to the marks on her face. The water had come from his waterskin’s rationing, and cloth from the meager healing kit he’d towed along. A low mutter to himself instilled, forced, a degree of softness into his movements, into his touch. He was dealing with an animal of sorts, and all animals responded better to gentle motion. An animal, that is, with the face of a woman. Tenderly, he placed a trembling hand against her cheek, dabbing at the blood with the wet cloth while the rest of him remained a wary distance away from those horns. He’d heard of foresters being gored by lesser. This action, at least, was not objected to by Tashep. In fact, after several minutes of the stroking and water’s cool kiss, her ribcage had stopped heaving. Her eyes had ceased to focus on much of anything, tension lapsing in towards sleep. It would be a slow progress, this gaining of trust between two very different beings, but a progress none the less. 'The Investigation: What is Man?' “He hasss trapped the moonsss...” Awakening to the warm puff of breath over his face, Soravyn jerked upright, groping blindly for his blade. The sheath was empty. More worriedly, his wrists were bound together. Twin orbs of red, beady in the darkness, watched him from o’er the tip of his nose like a cat, unphased by his sudden wake. “In hisss hair...” It would seem, apparently, that the “Syladris” had no trouble seeing in the dark. A fact he found a bit unsettling as it gave her one more physical advantage over him. More unsettling, however, was that in trying to scoot back away from her leering, Soravyn’s ankle reached the end of its tether – another acquisition he must have earned in his sleep. Growling in frustration, he leaned his back against the roughness of tree bark. “''Not alone'',” Thshepsi bent her head closer to breathe in his ear, reaching a hand out to explore his silver locks with her fingertips. “''Be ssstill...I mean you no ha-arrm''.” She was reciting his very lines to her of the day prior when he sought to satisfy his curiosity. Now, it would seem, she had intentions of satisfying her curiosity with him. In any other situation, this proximity with a woman might be welcomed, however, the fact remained that this was indeed no woman. “Release me, Tashep,” Ordered the ex Justiciar with a tone of annoyance, betraying the name he’d made for her. “''No, Tashep'',” Tshepsi murmured in response, lowering her fingers from his hair to prod at the stubble along his jaw. The difference in texture must have amazed her thoroughly, for she repeated the sequence of touches, nose just inches from his own. He could head-butt her, but that would just be a temporary fix and most likely result in his later demise if his skull wasn’t crushed in the process. “''Tshepsi sssays no''.” “T...t’shep’si?” Soravyn echoed back poorly. “Is that your name?” Rolling his hands over one another slowly, he tested the give of the leather. “''It isss what they call me'',” She responded simply and moved her hands to his collar. Her fingers picked curiously at the clothing. “''What isss thisss?” She asked, a horn grazing his cheek as she dipped her head to sniff inquisitively at it. “We refer to it as clothing,” Soravyn muttered dryly, craning his head back to spare his eyes a second encounter with the pointy object. “Clothing is worn to keep our bodies warm and for modesty’s sake.” “''What isss modesssty?” Tshepsi pressed. He heard the rasping of scales over grass as she wound around him to inspect from a different angle. A slender hand pressed to his ribcage to feel the pulse beneath. “What, indeed,” Soravyn grumbled lowly, watching her hands with heightened concern. Still, a part of him remained fascinated by the utter naivety and innocence with which she went about her actions. Like a baby, experiencing things for a first time, yet she was familiar with his language, if not fairly fluent. It just didn’t make sense. His escape from the wrist wrapping came not a moment too soon, as her curiosity had turned to his trousers. Two legs were SO much more interesting than a tail! Snatching her hands away from his knee and holding them painfully tight, Soravyn gathered his free leg beneath him and growled irritably at her. “I won’t tell you again. Release me!” His assertiveness was unfortunately not rewarded as hoped. Instead, Tshepsi’s eyes grew wide with alarm and she broke free of his grip with a scratch from her freakish fingernails. At first he held his breath, awaiting the death blow while staring at the blood that now raked his palms. The deathblow never came. In fact, when he dared to look up, she was gone. Bowing his head, Soravyn swore and kicked loose the ankle tether. The ease with which he did so was ridiculously smooth. A very small flicker of guilt wrinkled his brow after further study. She hadn’t tied them tightly at all. IF at all. It had just been an illusion. Shadow's Fickle Role “You are touched by the Shadow,” Soravyn concluded in a tone more skeptical than grim when he re entered the tent to find her there, huddled amidst a raked nest of hides and blanket. “What you did to me tonight...it was all just an illusion. A trick.” Rather than accusing her with his eyes, however, his expression was written more with deep concern. Failing to meet his gaze, Tshepsi knotted her tail more tightly around itself, arms wrapping uneasily around her middle. “''I didn’t do it'',” She whispered in a conspiratorial tone and let her eyes wander nervously to the ceiling and stars beyond it. “I’m not accusing you, not angry with you. I just want to know how you did it,” Soravyn pressed hesitantly, uncertain as to how was best to reckon with an unknown creature of shadow so fragile as she. “''I jussst wanted to sssee you'',” Tshepsi whimpered, snaking her fingers upwards to curl over her horns as she cowed away from the sides of the tent, hiding in the blanket nest. “''Like you sssaw me. But ssshe knew you wouldn’t let me. Ssso ssshe helped. Ssso you sssee? I didn’t mean to''.” Soravyn stared for a moment, lips pondering a scoff. Like a child, she cowered there, concocting an invisible friend to take credit for a phenomenal trick. Not all of Shadow’s touched were aware of their abilities, and that was a known fact. Many go unnoticed for the duration of their lives. But how could one be unaware when they actively use their gift? As if sensing his doubt, Tshepsi sobered her childlike mannerisms and stiffened her spine. “''Innocence isss mine'',” she confirmed softly, “''For Tssshepsi doesn’t know thingsss''.” This caused Soravyn to purse his lips with attempted deciphering of Tshepsi’s words. “You must have some memory then – even if fragmented.” “''There isss only darkness,” The Syladris responded as she traced wandering lines across her skin. The blue marks left in her fingers wake faded rapidly. “''White wingsss and whispersss. Sssighs of the rootsss underground. Ssshivering of the leavesss above.” Tshepsi paused, hesitantly lifting her eyes towards his. “''And then a man bent over the sssadnesss. Around him the final ssspirit fled and called to me to look.” “...Not alone'',” Soravyn muttered, squeezing his brows between thumb and forefinger. “Is that what you meant? Not alone because of that...presence?” Tshepsi shook her head with a shy sort of smile. “''The voicesss...I once wasss a voice. Now the othersss...more mussst follow''.” He really shouldn’t look so far into this for sake of his own sanity, but still...would more mean a siege? “More like you?” he asked. At this, the corners of Tshepsi's mouth slackened, gaze growing increasingly vacant as her head tilted lifelessly in his direction. “''Each voice isss different, but all whisssper Sssyladris....” '''The Acclimation' Her mannerisms were beyond strange. At times, she’d stand at distance for hours, staring into nothingness or become entranced by something so meaningless as a blade of grass. Then the polar opposite would occur without warning – he’d wake in the night to find her curled up uncomfortably close. Her mind was distant, thoughts secretively guarded, yet she held no sense of personal space or comfort zone in the physical sense. Sleep, to her, was time for huddling, much like whelps pressed safely against their mother’s side. Animals, curled together in a burrow. Warmth. Safety. Two of the simplest pleasures that were easy for a wandering man such as himself to have long let go but not forgotten. He had, at least, convinced her to wear a tunic of his, though it was a request made more for his sake than hers. She’d agreed with a childlike excitement as though it were a game of costuming, but later he found it discarded on a muddy bank of the spring, a naked Tshepsi splashing around with the ease of a fish, happily freed and greatly bored of the scratchy fabric. A compromise was finally reached wherein she’d don the human garb at night when she was insistent on sleeping within such close vicinity. If, on the other hand, she chose to spend the night roaming the darkness alone, he could care less. Tshepsi now was no fool and had sensed his myriad of emotions and frustrations more than she let on to. It was intriguing for her, pushing his limits of one feeling or another, learning more about the tolerance of this man creature. His words could be cruel at times when he’d lost patience, but on occasion they did make promises of nicer things, of explorations of far away places, of introducing her to more of his kind. This latter endeavor came with a new set of rules, however, and she wondered for a time as they marched through the wilderness if it was worth it. The itchy garment, for instance, had become a full-time addition to her person. The night before the day that the man had planned to venture into the city, Tshepsi watched him very closely for signs of what they were to face. And yet she found no emotions beyond the ordinary. It must be a normal thing, then, for creatures, humans, of his kind to dwell together. She did catch sight of some apprehension in his eyes each time he looked at her, though. Would she be accepted? The Syladris remained pensive for the remainder of the evening, barely touching her usual meal of bark, berries, mushrooms, insects, grubs...whatever she could scrounge for, and of course whatever she could steal from his hands – fresh meat. The first time Soravyn witnessed Tshepsi foraging he had watched with a mixture of awe and disgust. She swallowed down nearly any organic thing that would fit into her mouth – flakes of bark scraped from trees, insect wings fallen on the ground, berry sprigs – twigs and all. Yet not once did she appear to suffer poor effects from the strange diet. In fact, not once did he see or hear her searching for a place to “see a man about a horse”. Strange, that. Once the twilight did delve deeper into inky blackness, the man had settled into his roll of animal skins for rest. Remembering the way he’d watched her all day, Tshepsi kept her distance until she was certain he was asleep. Slithering cautiously over, she’d planted her nose against his and stared, willing him to stir. He did not, save to scratch awkwardly at an insect bite behind his ear. Satisfied, Tshepsi meandered in a wide circle around him before finding a suitable radius to cut in towards the center and lay parallel to him so that her tail remained out of his reach. She rolled onto her side, head tilted to adjust her horns, and gazed deeply inside his ear. A curious cavern, filled with noises and whispers – the place where the thoughts go. Once the ear staring grew tiresome, she allowed her lashes to flutter closed and gathered her arms beneath her head. A deep breath drew in his scent – the scent of leather and trees – and it made her smile. Her human. She’d found him first, she decided, and would thusly ward off any other creatures who may seek to take him from her. The previous night had brought great disappointment for the Syladris as her male companion explained to her that while she may “get away” with crawling near or even into his bedroll beneath the vast expanse of the stars in such a lonely place, such behavior could not be allowed for in the city. In the place of other humans. Because, he’d explained, with some degree of impatience, it was frowned upon for a man and woman to share close sleeping quarters when they were not wedded to one another. This of course required further explanation until Tshepsi nodded her understanding. A mate, like a wolf finds, was the only person to be permitted such close contact. What then did this make her, so far outside the city? Why were the rules different? And so, because this was her last opportunity to do so with his pained tolerance, Tshepsi tentatively reached out a hand and laid it over his, feeling his warmth. There. NOW he was her human. And no law of man would alter that philosophy. The dawn that spread orange into the sky on that fateful day was more beautiful than previous ones in her week-long memory. It spilled tawny hues over the scattering of thatch-topped hovels and wooden cabins that rested below. Even further away in view wound the shimmering waters of the Jadesnake river, adding to the scenery. She remained frozen on the hilltop while Soravyn advanced downwards, oblivious to her absence until he was several meters ahead. She shook her head at him when he turned on her with questioning eyes. “''There isss sssadnesss''...” Tshepsi voiced softly, looking to the small town and the battered, crude walls that surrounded it. “Fear.” Having grown used to her backwards way of speaking, Soravyn gestured to her with a leather glove. Come. “Your fear?” He inquired. “Or mine?” “Everyone,” Tshepsi replied quietly, slithering forward slowly to his side. She matched his downward pace along the slope, dexterity of that tail putting her at yet another advantage. She said no more for the remainder of the approach, nor did she dare utter a sound when surrounded by the sea of frightened, gawking residents. Only ages later when Soravyn had acquired for them a place for the night, after a lengthy discussion with the inn owner, did she crack the emotionless stone of her expression. Her words came with a secretive smile, eyes burning deeply into his. “''Their fear will not lassst. If only we begin quickly''...” A hand extended toward his, unfolding to offer her palm for the taking. Soravyn eyed it uneasily, mulling over her words. Hesitantly he took hold of the hand. A union of Light and Shadow. Balance. “What is it you mean to begin?” “''What you want. What they want'',” Tshepsi responded softly and closed her eyes, bringing the vision to bear. “''Rebirth''.” Syladris